One industry's growth can be in some cases, a severe burden on another industry's growth. The growth of wound care devices, reported on each year by Kalorama Information in its report (our latest update will be out this month) also means more costs for nursing homes and assisted living care centers that treat the elderly who are more likely to be wounded from accidents or surgeries, and who often take a longer time healing.
So it is illustrated in this McKinght's Long Term Care Report article.
Much remains to be learned about wounds and how best to treat them. Last year, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality awarded the Johns Hopkins Evidence-based Practice Center nearly half a million dollars to investigate state-of-the-art wound care. The center has been tasked with determining what's known about medications, antibiotics, dressings and surgery, and establishing strategies proven to work.
The review will focus largely on lower extremity wounds, which can be complications of leg ulcers and diabetes and be exacerbated by obesity and poor nutrition. But investigators also expect to learn more about other types of wounds, such as pressure ulcers that are seen in long-term care settings.
Across the United States, about seven million people have chronic wounds. About $25 billion is spent annually on their care, according to a study that called this a “snowballing threat to public health.”
The article has a point. What we present in our report as a key growth time for wound care device makers, which it certainly has been for the past few years, is to public health a 'snowballing threat.' And that suggests some of the price increases may be tamed in the near future, which will impact revenue growth.
The reports of many healthcare market research publishers, and Kalorama even at times, tend to be unitary in focus. Reports show charts of increasing revenues. We are identifying a market and showing companies the growth potential for new products that they might launch in that market.
But it's critical to understand any given market to know the markets that are adjacent. Because these are going to be the limiters on potential growth. In our diagnostic reagent reports are complemented well by our clinical lab services report. Growth in lab services will mean more reagent sales. In our report on global medical devices, we take a look at the hospital market and how they are slightly recovering from the recession and the hit on their endowments but still facing payment issues and reimbursement cuts. Here you can see that although wound care products will grow in coming years, we can't go off the charts with the growth rate because there's only so much the long term care industry and governments will pay. A good market research effort will require many different industry reports to see the whole picture.
